goth_hobbit

Some people may have noticed that I haven't been precisely chatty of late. Gabriel's death, coming a week before the first anniversary of my Granddad's death, hit me pretty hard. That isn't the only reason, though. D, my darling Grad Student, got another blow not quite two weeks ago. The research assistant position that he had been hoping to get for the summer isn't going to exist. U of M's School of Animal Health is in as bad a financial shape as the School of Public Health, and for the same reason: NIH grants that were slashed by Shrubya and Co. There are obvious downsides to this, most notably being that the RA position was worth about $5000 that he's not going to have. This means running up the credit cards more than he would like in order to save money for the move back here. However, his father is on a couple of mailing lists for programming positions, and offered to keep an eye out for a temporary contract offer. While D. doesn't miss programming by any means, he's not going to turn down perfectly good money if someone should wave it in his face. First, though, his dad has to come across a temporary contract that allows remote work. However, there are a couple good points to the news as well: first off, he is planning on coming back down for a couple of weeks in June to start the Great House Hunt. He wants to go with the realtor who handled the sale of his condo, and I am in agreement; both of us like the guy. While the realtor in question is decidedly metrosexual, he's also personable and professional, and he already knows what kinds of houses that D. and I would gravitate towards. He won't waste our time by showing us places that we won't like. Perhaps more important, though, is that not working over the summer (assuming that D's dad doesn't find anything) will give D a much-needed chance to do something that he hasn't been able to do in far too long -- namely, relax. D. is incredibly smart and hard-working, and the fact that he enjoys learning in addition to the previous qualities has led to some of our friends to assume that academic pursuits are easy for him. That's hardly the case I know better, having witnessed just how hard he studies in pursuit of his GPA. When he starts comparing semesters and academic years to, say, Ypres, or The Somme ...well, let's just say that WWI metaphors have been a standard part of our mutual vocabulary for the past couple of years. He desperately needs the down-time before plunging back in to the academic grind. So, here starts the planning for the next round of cross-country travel. I looked at gas prices and decided that flying would probably be a better bet, even with the addition of an extra suitcase and a rental car. First leg is Denver to Minneapolis in mid-May for D's graduation. From there, I fly into Orlando, pick up the rental car, and drive down to Bradenton for my chosen sister's museum exhibit opening. We'll reprise our piratical finery at a convention in Orlando that same weekend, then back to Bradenton for a few days. I drive back to Orlando and spend a few days with Mom, her husband, and my youngest sister, then back to Minneapolis, and then back to Denver. D. comes down in June; in early July, I'll be flying back up for CONvergence and the start of packing. Somewhere in there, we might close on a house (under D's name for the moment), and I'll try and work in some more outside shows. Plus, I'd like to try and work sleep somewhere into all of this. It's a lot of work. But I truly believe that the payoff will be more than worth the effort.

This is a wonderful story, and I hope that you get to see your chosen family more often than you fear after you change locations. Many people don't understand the concept of chosen family; I do understand it, having several members myself. Those who don't "get it", I think, are missing out on something truly amazing.

Hey, look everybody! I'm finally updating this thing again! There has been a lot of Stuff going on at Chez Hobbit; so much so that I hardly know where to begin. I'm just going to pick a spot and go. My Dear Grad Student, D., made the drive down for Spring Break with Maggie-dog, and it was good. A little awkward, in some ways; he was staying with his parents, which meant that I was as well. (I have a very small place and a housemate, plus two elderly cats and the ferret; adding another human and a large dog with knee problems who isn't used to two flights of stairs would have been utter insanity.) In fact, when he asked them if they would mind having me over for a night or two, they had already anticipated the possibility, so it turned into them seeing my bleary smiling face every morning all week. At some point, they were going to learn that I am not a Morning Person, so it was probably good to get it out of the way. I'm not sure that D's parents were quite prepared for just how solid our relationship is, but again -- they were going to see it at some point, and if they have any reservations about my presence in his life, they had plenty of opportunity to bring it up. All in all, I don't have any worries on that front. While D was here, he got word from CU. They want him. They really want him. Needless to say, the acceptance letter for their offer has been sent, along with the properly regretful "thank you for your interest in me" letters to the other schools. D is coming Home in August, and while the situation with Minnesota remains bittersweet, I think that things are going to be okay in that respect as well. D has been homesick beyond the telling of it. Although that isn't the best reason for choice of a PhD program, they did make him a good enough offer to tip the scales, and he was really impressed with the way that the program has come together in the past couple of years. Next up: house-hunting. Saying good-bye gets harder and harder every time we have to do it, and this time was no exception. The only bonus is that we now know that there is a finite number of times that it's going to happen again. May, for D's graduation, and probably a mid-summer trip. Speaking of May, both D and the Housemate are trying to convince me to fly instead of drive; I'm still torn on the idea. It isn't just graduation; I'm also going to Florida on that same trip for my chosen sister's museum exhibit opening, and I'll want to spend some time with my mom and birth-sister as well. I haven't been convinced that flights, extra suitcase charges, and a rental car will be any less expensive than gas and motels; plus having my own car gives me an escape route if Mom and I should have a major disagreement over some of the things I'm going to discuss with her while I'm there. On the other hand, airport shuttles do make residential pick-ups, and flight reservations can be changed, if you're willing to pony up the cash. It just takes more time to do so than packing a car. Decisions, decisions. This week in particular has been hard; I found out a week ago today that a friend went in for what was supposed to be a routine surgery and didn't come out. Gabriel's heart stopped while he was under, and the doctors couldn't resuscitate him. People are still reeling from the news. A bunch of us spontaneously converged on the local hangout the night that word got out. Everyone, including me, kept looking at the front door of the Cafe, waiting for Gabriel to walk in ...even though we all knew that it wasn't going to happen. I had more beer than food, and I wasn't the only one in that state, either. Maybe I was betraying my Irish roots by sticking to Newcastle, but the Cafe doesn't have Harp or Smithwick's on tap, and doesn't carry Beamish at all. I don't drink all that much, despite having the alcohol tolerance of Bacchus, and I lost count of the pints I was downing. I have this vision of the brewery staff at Newcastle solemnly hanging my photograph in the lobby. I had to break the news to the Grad Student that same day. Before I started abusing my liver. I didn't want him to just stumble over it like a trip wire, and the news was all over our friends' assorted blogs. I still feel bad about adding to his already crappy day, but he was glad to hear it from me instead of someone -- or somewhere -- else. Gabriel was his friend as well, and I know that it hit D hard. He said "Gabe and Vanessa should have been sitting in the corner at our housewarming party, making snarky comments." And I feel doubly bad that I wasn't physically there with D, doing what I could to make things easier. It still doesn't seem real. I told a friend at the first gathering that, were I Jewish or particularly religious, I would say that the world is short by one of the tzadikim; being neither, I was still saying it. She replied that she is Jewish, and she agrees with me entirely. Gabe's memorial was Friday at the Cafe; it was entirely appropriate, as he spent more time there than in his apartment. The organizers wanted it to be a celebration of his life rather than focusing on his loss, and I think that we managed for the most part. People got up to tell stories and reminisce. I didn't know if I was going to speak or not, but in the end, I did. I got the final word, so to speak, when Rachel handed me the microphone. I kept it short, commenting that Gabriel Wisdom was the most aptly named person that any of us are ever likely to meet, and summed it up with two lines from my favorite Dylan Thomas poem: Though lovers be lost, love shall not. And Death shall have no dominion. Just to bring the suckage full circle, tomorrow (okay, today, March 28th) is the 1 year anniversary of my Granddad's death. I can already tell that I'm either going to be wildly productive, or a complete basket case; it depends on how well I can manage to keep myself distracted. Granddad will never get to meet Daniel, nor see how happy I am with him. Daniel will never get to shake Granddad's hand, or tell him how much he loves me. It hurts almost as much as it did a year ago, knowing these things. While the part of me that still has faith that this world is not the end tells me that Granddad already knows and approves, we still won't get to see it, and that makes a difference. I wish that I could end this on a cheerier note, but I'm just not in that state of mind right now. I'm really looking forward to D's call this evening.

Thank you.

Dear Excolo, this has been a roller coaster of a day. Brace yourselves, dear friends; this is going to read like a novel. First off, birthday greetings, which are always happily received. It's a bit ironic that the majority of them came from people here, most of whom I have not met face-to-face, in comparison with the ones that came in from those who I actually know here in Denver. They really, truly helped the day to go better. I'm driving myself to distraction trying to get ready for Saturday. It isn't the fault of the people who are sponsoring it; they have been wonderfully communicative, and I have a really good feeling about how things will go. Perversely, this is exactly what's goading me to this frenzy; I want to make a good impression on them. Another show that I have inquired about, however, has not gotten back in contact with me, and I think that I'm going to put in another call to them tomorrow. That show is more established, and caters to a more monied crowd, but I'm less impressed with their coordinator. I have two other prospective events which I need to contact, and I have a sinking feeling that the person who does my casting has up and disappeared. My mother called to wish me a happy birthday, and somehow managed to turn the conversation into an inquisition. I love her dearly, but we have communication problems that span back a lifetime. I know that she's concerned, and I know that she wants me to do well, but the way she expresses herself often leads to messages that are not just mixed, but completely scrambled. For one thing, she is incredibly gung-ho, and doesn't seem to understand that her displays of cheerleader-ish behavior come across very, very badly. I'm knocking myself out on a daily basis, but she doesn't get to see that, since she's halfway across the country. As a result, her exhortations about the things that I could be doing come across as criticisms that I'm not actually doing enough. Take today, for instance; I mentioned that I could, possibly, take my skills to someone else's shop. The reasons that I haven't are several; for one thing, the past two years have seen several established local jewelers go out of business. In one case, the firm had been around for over a century. The economic downturn hit them badly, and the uptick came too little, too late. It's sad, really, that they had to close their doors just as things are starting to recover, but I can understand. The lean years were very lean indeed, and the fact that my business is so very small worked in my favor. The point is, the other firms weren't hiring during the recession, and now there's something of a local glut of people with more experience that I have. If I had been working for one of those firms, I would be out of a job, and my own business would be further back on the growth curve. If I went out looking now, I would be in competition with people who have locally recognized names like Kortz Jewelers on their resumes, and bench jeweler certifications under their belts. I have neither of these to offer, so it stands to reason that the remaining companies would be less inclined to take a chance on me. And, as I have mentioned before, I got spoiled while working for my Old Goat. By the time he passed away, he had put an incredible amount of responsibility on my shoulders, coupled with an equal amount of trust, and I would likely not find that anywhere else. Before I could tell my mom any of this, however, she started in on how it would be a good idea, and I would probably have use of tools at another shop that I don't have in my own. Never mind the fact that an employer would not look very kindly about my using company tools for my own projects, I have holes in my knowledge base, and I know it. I even said so. Her response was that, although I'm probably not going to go back to college at this point, there's nothing stopping me from taking art classes in the things I'm interested in learning. I admit it; I don't have a degree. I was a few credit hours shy of my Associates when I had to drop out because of carpal tunnel syndrome. There were nights when I couldn't hold a pen to do my classwork. I am not proud of this, but I have tried to make up for the lack by doing things like reading chemistry and biology textbooks for fun, and I haven't given up on the dream of going back when my life is a bit more settled. What I'm sure that my mother meant to say was "I know that you have other priorities in your life right now." What I heard, however, was "I have become resigned to the fact that you are going to allow your brains to turn into porridge." Yes, I could take metalworking courses; the ones offered by Metro State are well-regarded, and the campus is very close by. However, although I have holes in my skill set, I also am far beyond the 100-level classes. They focus on things like saw-pierced copper projects and making basic bezel set cabochon pieces. I have the design of a $15,000 diamond ring under my belt, and I regularly construct rings that have bridge mountings and cathedral shoulders. When I pointed out that taking college courses for jewelry design would mean interviewing with the professors so that they could figure out where to put me, she pointed out that they have telephones. I deferred on that idea, and pointed out that the Colorado Metalsmith's Association has skill-specific seminars; she immediately began grilling me as to what they offer, how much the membership is, and how much the courses cost. And she offered to pay for a year's membership for me. I should be jumping for joy at this, right? Except for the part in which I'm not. As of this moment, I have been officially 39 years old for about 3 hours (I was born very late on March 7th), but I feel as though I'm being treated like I'm a third that age. Honestly, this is the sort of thing that you would do with a not-terribly-motivated teenager; apply a very big stick, then dangle the carrot. I'm not that teenager anymore, and I resent being bullied as though I am. She has always been like this; gung-ho beyond the bounds of reason. She owned her first business before she was eighteen. She owned her first home before she was 25. One semester, she attended college full time, worked a full-time job, and a part-time one as well. (Granted, she only did that for the one semester, but she did it.) She lives as though she has a ram jet powering her, and she holds the people around her to the same standard. This has caused considerable friction in the past; one year she went to my school and asked to see my history of academic achievement test scores. I consistently placed in the top 1st to 5th percentile for verbal and reading comprehension, and in the top 20th to 25th percentile in math. This means that, at my worst, I was doing better than 75% of my peers. Most parents would be delighted at this, but she took me aside and told me that it didn't look as though I had achieved all that much. What she meant was that she saw room for me to pull up my math scores, and if I had been able to earlier overcome the combination of inadequate teaching and math-phobia instilled by my father, I probably could have done just that. That wasn't what she said though, and she was befuddled when I took her pronouncement badly. Now, she harps on my business, and the notion that I'm not doing "enough". Pray tell; what defines "enough"? I'm not making a fortune, but I'm making enough to keep going. I'm steadily increasing my income every year. I'm not a Name, but I'm becoming well-regarded locally. I have had people at the Cafe where I exhibit -- people who are not rolling in riches, mind you -- eat ramen noodles for a week so that they can afford to commission a special piece from me as a gift for someone else, and that says more about how my work is regarded than the glossiest ad campaign. I'm my own bookkeeper, my own advertising agency, my own promoter, my own designer, and my own manufacturer. What I do is physically exhausting; I spend what feels like hours on end hunched over, blowtorch in hand, not able to move around because I need heat in one exact spot for a soldering operation. At the end of long day, every muscle in my body is knotted or twitching, and sometimes both. How is this not "enough"? I really feel that a lot of this can be laid at my father's feet. Although she has tried to purge the damage that he did from our relationship, I can see its shadow. My father was more of an artiste than an artisan, and certainly didn't have a lot in the way of goals or drive. It's no mistake that both he and my mother used the same insult on me when I was younger; whenever I did something that one of them didn't like, they would accuse me of acting "just like" the other one, and I had no illusions that this was meant as a compliment. If I point this out to her, it will probably cause her to back off quickly enough, but I fear that it might also do some damage in the process. Now, on top of all this, D. -- my dear Grad Student -- got a bundle of mixed news from his PhD applications. First off was a very polite and properly regretful rejection letter from UCLA, which was really the wild card application. They would have had to throw a lot of money at him to compensate for the cost of living increase; and there's that fact that I would be illegally bringing a ferret into California. Yes, domestic ferrets are illegal in California, and if I get started on the idiocy of that particular bit of legislation, I'll be typing all night. So, while that letter made the overall decision making process easier in a way, it's still bittersweet; UCLA is a good school, Los Angeles is one of the world's great cities, and they're doing research there that really interests him. The second bit of news was an acceptance letter from U of M. However, it's a backhanded acceptance, as it comes with no funding whatsoever. No TA offers, no RA offers, and no tuition assistance. U of M had a record number of internal applicants this year, and didn't get two major grants because NIH funding has been slashed by the Bush administration. Just to bring this into perspective: Minnesota makes it incredibly hard for a student to establish residency, largely because they have a very good social safety net for residents. You have to work in the state, and student positions do not count. The legislation was obviously written with undergrads in mind, and didn't take the needs and restrictions of graduate students into account. This means that, for the past two years, he has been living there, paying taxes there, and voting there, but he would have to pay out-of-state tuition -- at some $13,000 per semester -- if he stayed at U of M. There is simply no way that we can afford that. The realization hit him this afternoon as he was leaving campus: we won't be able to start our lives in Minneapolis unless something miraculous happens. We won't be able to live there, possibly for a very long time. I love the city. He loves the city. We have friends there; good friends. After all of the trauma with selling the condo, moving across the country, leaving Home behind, our developing and then maintaining our relationship, and his doing so with a badly broken leg at the start of it ...it comes to this. A slightly more polite version of "Oh, okay. Whatever" from the university. It's not like the rejection from Johns Hopkins, but it is going to take a while for him to process it. From CU-Denver, there is still an increasingly uncomfortable silence. Now, when he called this afternoon, we had already been going back and forth about these things on his blog (the joys of the modern relationship) for much of the day. He even apologized during the text exchange about this not being a very fun birthday present. I told him that he had nothing for which to apologize; however, the collected faculty and staff of both U of M and the CU-HSC need to prostrate themselves before me en masse and beg my dubious mercy. Of course, by the time he called, we were both in a Mood, and tandem whining is not best done over 900 miles of copper and fiber optic cable. I was fresh from a verbal fencing match, he was distracted and obsessive, and neither of us really got the comfort that we needed from the other. He apologized for that in a later e-mail; he really just wanted to wish me a happy birthday and see how I was doing. Luckily, this weekend we will be able to hash some of this out together, and not over various cable systems, since he's driving down for Spring Break. Right now, though, we are both bone-weary and more than a little numb. Can I just go back to being 38 and get a do-over next week?

Thank you, hon. Things are looking better since that whinge-fest. Seems as though I'll have to update again!

...time to take the chairs off of the tables and give everything a thorough dusting. As you might have gathered, I am newly arrived from the Great White North yet again, and never before has that description been quite so lacking in hyperbole. The two storms that hammered Minneapolis while I was there left three feet on the ground in some places. The park across the street from D's apartment is so completely engulfed that it may not be uncovered come May. D. is six feet three inches tall, and I kid you not when I say that there are drifts and plow-bergs that would be over his head. I'm a foot shorter than him, and I had trouble simply walking in some places because the snow was so deep. Poor Maggie-dog; she loves snow, especially when she's in it up to her chin, but snow, ice, and cold are very hard on her knees. The weather is hard on her humans as well; D. has a titanium rod in his left lower leg, and the cold gets into it in a very unpleasant way. I managed to get my feet soaked while we were walking Maggie, and he was scared half to death that I would get frostbite before we could get our very stubborn bulldog back home. D's final station in the Air Force was Minot, ND; as a medic, he saw plenty of cold-weather injuries without having them visited upon me. (My toes are just fine, by the way; I told him that if they were in danger of frostbite, they wouldn't have hurt so damned much.) At any rate, the interview with University of Colorado went well. D. had an unofficial heads-up to watch for a letter bearing an official offer -- a letter which has not yet arrived. U of M hasn't said anything either, which has him rather antsy. He was hoping that all of the offers would be on the table before I left, so that we could discuss the options. This week, hopefully. The plan is for him to drive down next weekend for spring break, puppy in the back seat, and weather permitting. With luck and the cooperation of the admissions committees of two different universities, we'll be able to make some decisions. Of course, we've already managed to discuss things at length. Neither of us is particularly entranced with either Pittsburgh or Columbus. More to the point, neither of us knows the cities, nor do we have friends or family in either place. It would make things far more difficult than need be. If we are going to even think of starting a life together, let it present as few obstacles as possible. In the meantime, I have a show on Saturday to prepare for. Since this show is an hour's drive and a high mountain pass away from here, I hope that the weather on Friday doesn't take a turn for the worse. I can't set up until Saturday morning, which means leaving here at about 6 AM if the roads are in good shape. And I need to finish most of the things on my workbench before then. It's going to be a long week.

Well, as of yesterday, Pittsburgh appears to be in the running. There's no official offer on the table yet, but after talking to the department chairman, the Grad Student is reasonably certain that there's an acceptance / admissions letter on the way. Downside is that said chairman hasn't actually looked at D's application, and therefore doesn't seem to realize that he will have two Masters degrees under his belt, should he chose to enroll there; one of which is in statistics. This makes a difference; Pittsburgh's first year PhD students are usually relegated to standard TA / RA positions, rather than the higher-level floating RA positions, so that they can pick up statistical experience. The RA rotation program has PhD students working on different research projects, much like a med student doing different department rotations during their internships. It also has PhD students taking on some teaching positions, which looks really good on the resume. Needless to say, this is the program option that D. wants; not only does it give him the experience that he needs, the pay is a bit better. Upsides: good school (hey, he didn't apply to any that weren't), puts him in contact with the East Coast mathematical biology network, close to Baltimore and good friends there, interesting topography, and the housing market is such that we might be able to afford a decent-sized, non-fixer-upper, non-rental house. Downsides: neither one of us knows anyone in Pittsburgh, neither of us has been there (I might have driven through a couple of times, but that does not count), moving two households to terra incognita would be a logistical nightmare, we have no idea which neighborhoods to look in (housing prices might be great in an area, until you figure in the cost for the Kevlar lining for the walls), we have no idea what the local arts community looks like, we would have no social network or safety net, and did I mention that neither of us has ever been to the city to have a first-hand opinion? He still has confidence in U of M, and has a good feeling about the interview weekend with University of Colorado. CU-HSC's communications are along the lines of "let us sell ourselves to you", rather than the other way around, and he still has some contacts in CU-Denver's math and computer science departments. U of M hasn't been the most communicative about the review of PhD applications, but he hasn't gotten any feedback that gives him reason to be nervous about his chances. One drawback is that I can't give him any preference for anywhere except Denver, LA, or Minneapolis, simply because I don't know the cities in question. Denver we both know like the backs of our hands, especially the Capitol Hill neighborhood; that is where the streets know our names, and it is Home. Minneapolis is a place that he really liked before moving there; he was there to visit Lexi and Michael often enough that he came to know the city, and after multiple visits, I know and love it as well. I've been to LA enough times to get something of a feel for the place. The rest? I have no idea. I didn't mean to make him sad by saying this, but I've become rather resigned to the notion that I can't allow myself to fall in love with any location if I'm going to take up the life of an academic adjunct. A career in academia is much like having a career in the military; you are very unlikely to spend most, let alone all, of your career in a single location. He feels guilty about it, too, but I knew what I was letting myself in for. I was an Air Force brat, albeit part-time, so I know something about being a professional gypsy. Eyes wide open, and all that. I'm not saying that I'm thrilled by the prospect; if I were the type who liked moving around a lot, I wouldn't have so damned many books. Denver has been my home for 20 years. That being said, a certain amount of itinerancy is going to come with the package; I'm not particularly comfortable with the notion of packing up a house and a business every few years, but I have to look at the bigger picture. And that bigger picture is Us. But still ...Pittsburgh.

Hey, one never knows where the good faculty positions will be.

Boy howdy, your school experience sounds painfully familiar. Social interaction from grades 1 through 11 were what formed my World's Shyest Redhead Disappearing Act. (I finally said f*ck it in my senior year of high school and decided that if I was going to be classed as a mutant no matter what I did, then I was going to take my cues from John Hughes movies. A cross-country move a few months after graduation sent me right back to being painfully shy, and I didn't come back out f my shell for years.) To this day, I'm not keen on Hallmark Day; if it gets observed at all, I prize things that I have gotten on the day that are different. Best Feb. 14th gift ever? My Grad Student bought me a black felt, snap-brim fedora. So yeah -- bring on the zombies! (Neat bit of trivia: The Return of the Living Dead is set in my hometown of Louisville, KY; and while the credits don't seem to list Louisville as a filming location, I recognized several locations as not being in California. )

No, you're not the only one, Kitrona, but then I was raised in the South and had "if you can't say something nice..." hammered into my thick skull from birth. That wasn't what formed my "bite my tongue and think it over" habit, though; I can lay that one at the feet of my maternal grandmother. She would say horrible things to me, and if I complained about it, I got "well, I'm sorry that you can't handle me being honest." Mom has occasional moments of it, too, but she is mortified when they are brought to her attention. As a result, the moments have become noticeably fewer in number over the years. D. says that the conversational filters are getting stronger in each subsequent generation; I say that sometimes the best example is a negative one.

...can now be listed as "accomplished"! I decided to make another dent in the Macy's store credit card this afternoon. (Yes, Mom got the original receipts to me, and I was able to make Macy's take back the lace-arsed beige pants.) I found three very nice screen-printed long-sleeve t-shirts, but no boots. *sigh* On a whim, I went up to the lingerie department, but wasn't expecting much; the last time I checked, I couldn't even find a brassiere in the right size that didn't look as though it could be worn on-stage for a performance of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries". This time, though, several items had gone on sale, and a very good one at that. Take another 40% off of something that has already been discounted by 25%? Thank you; don't mind if I do. And among the various gowns was the one that found its way into my shopping bag. It's not quite the style that I wanted; I was hoping for something more tailored and slip-like. I was imagining something that positively reeks of Jean Harlow-esque glamor (think this one or this.) I didn't find anything like those, but what I did find was an unconstructed chemise style (no fitted bust, in other words); medium-weight satin, ankle length, wider straps, subtly embellished neckline, and a gorgeous shade of silvery seafoam green. It makes my eyes look almost like emeralds. For the moment, I'm wearing my flannel brocade-and-skull print PJ bottoms and an old t-shirt. Soon enough, though, I'll have an excuse to wear something slinky and elegant. I don't get enough chances to display my Inner Courtesan, and I intend to fully take advantage while I can.

Honestly, this is the first time in 5 years or more that I've bought myself a slinky nightgown. More to the point, it's the first time in about 5 years that I've had a reason to buy a slinky gown, so you're not alone there. On the other hand, I've come to the decision that a woman shouldn't need a "reason". I mean, sometimes you just ought to buy something like that strictly for yourself, as a treat. After all, if someone else is worth the effort, then it's certainly worth making the effort for yourself. That being said, it's nice to have someone else who can appreciate it, too.

Okay, apparently the 403 "you don't have permission" error is actually code for "This is going to get posted every single time you try and hit the back arrow because the database told you that it didn't post".

Don't be scared; we don't bite. Except at specific request. And believe me, I'm not at all put off by angst; you can probably wring it out of my blog by the quart.

Oh, Kitrona, I'm so sorry. I don't know if this will help or not, but from what you described on the forum, Berry may have had a birth defect of the palate or esophagus. If so, there's no way that you could have known. More , just 'cause.

This weekend (and I'm including Friday for the sake of clarity) has not been the most fun. Getting locked out of the Cafe's WiFi security wall on Friday, for nearly the entire day, was annoying enough. Since then: my middle sister, the MD and Navy officer, found out that she might be deployed a friend of my chosen sister took it upon himself to inform her abusive ex-fiance that she has moved back to that town the Grad Student and I have been on the telephone with one another three times, hand-holding one another through assorted emotional crises I tried to smash a bone in my finger to kindling while trying to hammer a ring shank into shape and some information has left me a little worried about my future ability to do my Friday shows at the Cafe. I can't do anything about the possibility that Alex might be deployed, and the idea has haunted my nightmares ever since Shrubya declared Son of the Sandbox ("My daddy got a war, an' I want one too!"). I can't do anything about (possible) new ownership at the Cafe, even though the official owner has reassured me that nothing is changing. I can't bolt to Minneapolis -- I already have an airline reservation that's only 11 days away -- and I can't drop everything and camp out on Sioux's doorstep with a broadsword, much as I want to. I have decided that I need to have the income of a Lady of Leisure, only without the attitude that usually accompanies it. I want to be able to throw money at the problems of family and friends until they go away; I want to be able to drop everything and fly to wherever I'm needed on a moment's notice. I want to provide boltholes and margaritas, storage and critter-sitting, tea and sympathy, and not have to worry about who is going to have to pay for all of it. I want to be a punk-rock, ElderGoth Auntie Mame to friends and family, and direct emotional and logistical support to D. I want it all, and right this second; but it's not happening on my current budget. Mostly, I just want to make a difference that amounts to more than "I'm here, and thinking of you."

This makes the second blog entry in a week that has disappeared into the ether. Last night's addition posted, then vanished overnight -- just like the last one that went *poof* Is anyone else noticing this phenomenon, or am I just special in the riding-the-short-bus-to-school way??

Yeah, I've seen the double posting issue crop up, although it hasn't happened to me. I suppose that the database is making up for the oversight by eating blog entries.

D. has been accepted for the fellowship competition at OSU. Let the twitchy anticipation begin as the bidding war (hopefully) starts between the various schools. He also finds the fact that I've named my ring mandrel "Mr. Poundy" to be extremely amusing. Other than that, my chosen sister has talked me into a Shopping Accident at Gypsy Moon. I'm getting a pre-Raphaelite / Artistic style wrap jacket in bluish-grey silk velvet with tea-dyed lace trim. I have no place to wear it, but it'll look fantastic with the black silk charmeuse blouse that she and D. already got me for my birthday. (It arrived the day before I had to leave, back in January. He couldn't wait until March to show it to me.) Other than that, I'm seriously debating whether or not I'm going to do my usual Friday show today. Granted, the Cafe is only a couple of blocks away, but it means hauling stuff up there in sub-freezing temperatures and fresh snow, and hauling it back in sub-zero cold. One of two things is going to happen; either people are going to be stir-crazy beyond belief and come out in droves, or they're going to turn into hibernating bears. There's no telling which is going to happen until later, so I may just call the Cafe and ask whoever is tending bar what they think is going to be the most likely situation. After all, if it's dead quiet, I'll just be hanging out on LJ and the Forum via my laptop, and I can do that just as easily from the comfort of my living room -- and not have to deal with their WiFi security system time-outs, or the blast of frigid air every time someone goes out to the patio for a cigarette.

It is indeed.

I think I should just start using the acronym and save myself a bunch of keystrokes. Anyway -- talked with D. tonight; as expected, I am absolved of and barred from any guilt for my decision, so naturally, I feel like crap about it. It doesn't help that he feels guilty about putting me in a position where I'd have to say no in the first place. His words; see disclaimer under "Gloomy and Russian." He did not put me in the position. CU put us in the position. It's expensive to board a dog who 1) needs thyroid medication twice a day, and 2) doesn't usually get along with other (adult) dogs because of pain issues from surgeries on both knees. Not if you're going to have her in any decent kind of kennel. It would be less expensive -- possibly -- for me to fly up; it certainly was when he was out of town over Christmas and New Year's, and he got a freezer full of homemade dinners out of the deal as well. The logistics were different then, though. On the other hand, it is wonderful to have someone who respects and encourages what I'm trying to build. It does bring my Old Goat mentor's words to my Mom into sharp focus, though. When she met Jim, she told him how great it was that he had taken me under his wing, and that she was proud that I had become so passionate about something that had the potential to let me make money. Jim burst out laughing, got his composure back, grinned at her and said "Jane, jewelers don't make money. Jewelers make jewelry. People who sell jewelry make money. Jewelers have really neat rock collections." He's mostly right; a designer and bench jeweler who has talent, passion, and determination in equal amounts can make a good living, and I am determined that that designer is going to be me. It's damned hard, though. If either D. or I wanted to take the easy way out, he could have kept his old job as a DBA here after he got his Masters, and called it good. I could have taken my knowledge and experience to another storefront after Jim died. We didn't; D. wants to teach and do research in equal amounts, and I ...well, my little workbench might not be the foundation of the next Tiffany and Co., but what I build from it will be all mine. Besides which, Apple Computers started out in a garage. There may be a way around the logistical problem, though. If I fly up the weekend before he has to be down here, and fly back the weekend after, I'd still be back in time for the show that I'm really the most interested in doing. And D. is planning on driving down with Magpie for Spring Break, because he is very, very homesick. If he made the drive on the Saturday that my show is, he'd get in about the time I finished unpacking the car after breakdown. The only potential conflict would be that Sinead the Wonder Weasel has a vet appointment the day after Hallmark Hearts and Flowers Day, but the housemate has the day off and can take her if I'm too busy packing. R., the housemate, is going to put his l33t cyber-shopper skillz to work on finding cheap airfare, and D. will call on Saturday for my decision. C'mon; what do you really think I'm going to say? There's not a bookie in Vegas who would take that bet. Now, I just have to screw up the gumption to tell my Mom that I'm going to be out of town yet again...

For those just tuning in, read the entry directly below this one first for the sake of clarity. So, earlier today, D. calls and asks if I’ve had a chance to check my e-mail. (Again, unexpected; we had talked for almost three hours last night.) Umm, no; so I pulled out my trusty little iBook and logged into the house network. University of Colorado Health Sciences Center sent him a “we want you to come look at our PhD program!” invitation. Again, more background is needed: a well-known university back east whose name I will not mention (but which rhymes with Rons Bopkins) sent a very similar “let us wine and dine you so we can see if we’re mutually compatible” invitation to him two years ago. After wining, dining, and forming what seemed to be a mutually good impression, they said “thanks, but no thanks”. I had a front-row seat for that particular emotional roller coaster; he had many reasons for wanting to go there, starting with the fact that it’s a damned good school, and he would have been entering directly in to their PhD program. The other reasons were equally valid, but intensely personal, so I won’t mention them here; just take it as given that the rejection letter was equal to a well-aimed gut punch, and leave it at that. Two years and a really traumatic move later (did I mention that he had a broken leg at the time?), he gets this invitation from a school that he could have applied to two years ago, and saved a whole lot of heartache. For the record, that’s essentially a transcription of him being Gloomy and Russian; the views expressed by the Grad Student do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this blogger, et cetera. The bioinformatics program at University of Colorado was in its infancy two years ago; he could not have gotten the education that he felt he needed from the program at that point, and I supported his decision to go somewhere that would best serve his needs. Whether that was Baltimore or Minneapolis, it didn’t matter; the CU-HSC was not where he needed to be, and that was that. The program really appears to have gotten its collective act together in the intervening span; they’ve got a good balance of faculty, and the curriculum seems to be reasonably sound. And again, he has reasons to find the idea of a PhD bearing the name University of Colorado rather appealing -- personal ones, but very real. There are several things to consider, though, that have nothing to do with wants and wishes; hard, cold, practical matters that won’t allow themselves to be ignored. Moving is expensive, to start with; moving up there was costly, moving back would be no less so, and make it borderline impossible to buy property. (Of course, this would probably apply to anywhere other than Minneapolis or Chicago; Columbus is just far enough away to make U-Haul look like a nightmare.) CU’s program has come along way, but it’s still not as well established as the other schools to which he has applied. There’s the issue of how much of a stipend they’re willing to free up, and what they would require as far as TA and RA duties. On the other hand, Denver is Home, and this place has been calling him back ever since he left. He has never stopped being homesick for the place where the streets know his name. When he got out of the Air Force, he moved back and was determined to never leave again, but life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans. He has contacts in both the math and computer science departments who could probably be counted on to put in a good word for him. And there’s the obvious appeal of spending a two or three more years in the rodina before taking up the life of the academic gypsy. On the third hand (he commented that he needs as many hands as Kali for this discussion, at which I told him to get out of my brain, because I was thinking the same thing) ...he really doesn’t want to leave Minneapolis. It’s a good school, and even when he’s whining about the work load, he admits that he is getting the education that he wanted from it. He loves the city -- not in the same way as Denver; Denver is Home, but Minneapolis could become a home -- and he knows that I have come to love it as well. Financially, Minneapolis makes the most sense; moving expenses would largely be limited to a small truck, beer and other beverages, and pizza for those who were helping out. The housing market is starting to come down a bit, we have a good support network, and did I mention the fact that we both really like the city? Plus, there’s the uncomfortable feeling that he’s backtracking. He could have applied to CU two years ago and avoided a lot of grief, or so those insidious little voices that make introspective people’s lives uncomfortable keep telling him. He wasted time. He’s backtracking. Things like that. I, of course, could not allow that to go unaddressed, and said “if you go to the grocery and buy a piece of fruit that you like, but it’s not ripe yet, it isn’t backtracking to put it on the counter for a couple of days until it’s ready.” He liked that analogy, and countered “And, in the meantime, you still have to eat something.” I don’t expect the ugly little voice to shut up quite this quickly, but at least I could get to to pipe down for a while. All in all, though ...Minneapolis. It’s a good place, and one where we both feel very at home. Of course, it isn’t up to him; it’s up to the Admissions Committee, and the fact that the professor for whom he works is on the committee doesn’t make a difference. His professor is not That Kind of Guy. D's application will be given no more favorable consideration than anyone else's -- laudable in principle, but kind of annoying in practice. And since I'm not the sort of person to send off e-mails saying things like "do you know how many hours he spent coding on that ^$ project of yours yesterday?", we're pretty much stuck with crossing our fingers and gritting our teeth. However, all of this falls under the heading of “long term planning”; today’s issue was far more immediate. Logistics for the CU-HSC recruitment thing. His proposal was that I fly up just before he had to come down for the interview weekend, take care of Maggie Waggy, stay until Spring Break, and the two of us (three, if you count the pup) drive back down to Denver -- which translates to him driving and me handling Maggie, as well as food and beverage distribution. Map wrangling isn't necessary; he's made the trip many times before, and it's impossible to get lost in Nebraska. There's nowhere to go. It sounds like a wonderful idea; however, my id and superego are about to come to blows over it, while my ego stands there going “I am so not getting in the middle of that.” The reason for this emotional donnybrook is that there are a couple of craft shows that look like good prospects for me, and they fall right smack in the middle of this timeframe. I managed to make a decent amount last year, despite the fractured nature of my schedule. I only did two shows that weren’t my usual Friday “set up at the Cafe and see what happens”. This tells me that I’m building some necessary momentum, and now is the time to get more aggressive about booking as many events as I can. I want to get my trademark, and my website, and be able to take my act on the road in a much broader sense. All of that requires money, though, and that means getting myself out to more events where people are going to be interested in spending it. Preferrably on me. I know that I won’t be letting him down by telling him no, and he has already told me that I shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so if that’s what I feel is necessary. He knows me well enough to know that it's not going to work that way, but form requires us to say it to the other. It’s just that I dislike being pinned between desire and necessity. I want to spend the time with him. I always want to spend time with him; we’ve known one another for almost 20 years and have never tired of one another’s company. I just can’t be in two places at once, though, and it hurts that I have to choose between fulfilling an immediate want and doing what is best for my business, myself, and Us in the long run. I know what I’m going to have to say, and I’m already disliking the saying of it. Either way, we will see each other before the end of February, and either I’ll be flying up for break, or he’ll drive down. Or possibly, I’ll end up driving up, as I have not had the best of luck flying out of DIA lately. Why can’t we just get to a point where the biggest decision that we have to make is whose turn it is to do the dishes?

I will; in fact, I'm just about to post the next memo from the Desk...

Ever had the feeling of a song being stuck in your head? It's called an earworm. Nobody knows what causes them, and they're contagious to boot. There are only two scientifically proven ways to rid yourself of an earworm: either bash yourself over the head several times until unconsciousness ensues, or -- give it to someone else. Therefore, I've decided to share the Brain Radio: Icicle Works Marathon. Enjoy. (Even better: watch the video here and sing along!) *********************** Love comes down upon us and it floats like water Burning with the hope of inside Feathered books the colors of a bright elation Stolen in the sight of love. We are, we are, we are we're just children Finding our way around in decision. We are, we are, we are all but helpless Take this forever, Whisper to a scream. Birds fly in the eye of a painter's daughter Spoken at the bitter end Wasted sacrifice for the new nirvana Night time, sends us on our way We are, we are, we are we're just children Finding our way around in decision We are, we are, we are all but helpless Take this forever, Whisper to a scream Whisper to a scream Whisper to a scream Whisper to a scream Whisper to a scream We are, we are, we are we're just children Finding our way around in decision We are, we are, we are all but helpless Take this forever, Whisper to a scream.